Characteristics:
- Presence of digital technologies forming basic infrastructure of social , political & economic practices
- Networks as basic form of human organization and relationship
Attribute #1
- Economic base of network society is informational
- Primacy of the generation & distribution of knowledge and information
- Emphasis on continuous technological innovation and flexibility as source of economic growth
Attribute #2
- The economy is organized globally
- Capital, commodities & information not contained within national boundaries
- Regions, cities, firms, individual workers are reconstituted as flexible, temporary networks of varying degrees of power
Attribute #3
- Time and space mediated by technology
- “Timeless time” and “space of flows”
Attribute #4
- Power and powerlessness are a function of access to networks and control over flows
- Networks acts as gatekeepers
- Some networks and nodes are more powerful than others
Attribute #5
- Tension between the abstract perception of being placeless and the concrete desire of people to be grounded in a particular place
- Disjuncture between globalizing technology and local identity
- In response, movements emerge to re-establish the local Technological determinism - Technology has the ability to drive human interaction and create social change-Focuses on impacts of ICTs on society. Technological Determinism #1
- Belief that technologies have an overwhelming and inevitable power to drive human interaction and social change
- Focus on the the effects or impacts of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on users, organizations, society
- Science is driver of technological innovation resulting in improvements in society & progress
Technological Determinism #2
- Belief that ICTs bring transformative shifts in society
- Technology seen as independent causal factor
- Technological imperative combines with idea that people react to and accommodate technological change, but do not try to reverse or redirect it
Technological Determinism #3
- Ian Angell, New Barbarian Manifesto (2000)
- “A ‘brave new world is being forced upon unsuspecting societies by advances in information technology.”
- Technological advances happen automatically & have a life of their own
- There is a logic to technological advances which is outside our control
Social shaping perspective - Technologies are continuously remade by what users do with them
- New media technologies both shape and are shaped by their social, economic and cultural contexts
- The shaping is “recombinant”= products of continuous hybridization of both existing technologies and innovations in interconnected technical and institutional frameworks
Web 1.0 and 2.0
Web 1.0 – is the old standard consisting of Static pages and plain html largely anything that isn’t web 2.0 personal home pages are one example of web 1.0. Controlled by people with authority. (Gov't Informational Website) Web 2.0 – the new face of the World Wide Web focusing on communications, secure information sharing, collaboration. Some examples are face book, you tube , and wikipedia
Web 1.0
Web 2.0
Static Reading Organizations Owning/Selling Brochure-ware Portals One-to-many E-business Central control
Dynamic Writing Communities Sharing Two-way communication Social Networks Many-to-many Peer production Reciprocal control
Richard Florida’s creative class An emergent class in the work force consisting of knowledge workers, intellectuals, and various types of artists.
paid to create
attatched to "creative habitats"
share "creative ethos"
driving future prosperity
3 Media paradigms
Interpersonal Media: conversation, letter, telephone, email, IM one-to-one communication Mass Media: theatre, oratory, books, radio, television, film one-to-many communication New Media: discussion forums, blogs, YouTube, wikis, games many-to-many communication. New media are interactive, peered and networked
Toronto transit camp
An unconferences held in Toronto with the goals of understanding what is wrong with local transit and discussing ways to improve it
Open creative communities Community: any group of individuals who interact and share some common characteristics Open: no artificial barriers to entry; membership comes from creative citizenship, both professional and amateur Creative: production of ideas and inventions that are personal, original and meaningful
Engagement pyramid
Post-industrialism
a society in which an economic transition has occurred from a manufacturing based economy to a service based economy, a diffusion of national and global capital, and mass privatization.
Consists of
Computer based digital technology that amplifies mental labour
Expansion of information, information networks and data banks.
Global work evironments, flexible work arrangements
As well as high mass knowledge creation
Post Industrial Society according to the text (87-88)
based on services
what counts is not raw muscle power, or energy, but information
the central person is the professional, for he is equipped, by his education and training, to provide the kinds of skills which are increasingly demanding in the post industrial society
the post-industrial society is defined by the quality of life as measured by the services and amenities- health, education, recreation, and the arts - which are now deemed desirable and possible for everyone
Information society An information society is a society in which the creation, distribution, diffusion, use, integration and manipulation of information is a significant economic, political, and cultural activity. The knowledge economy is its economic counterpart whereby wealth is created through the economic exploitation of understanding.
According to Nick Dyer-Witherford, the doctrine surrounding the information society has 7 elemental beliefs:
- The world is in a state of fundamental transition/upheaval
- The crucial resource of the new society is knowledge/information
- The primary dynamic force in this revolution/society is technology development and diffusion
- The generation of wealth in the information economy has eclipsed that of the material/manufacturing economy
- Social transformation accompanying these technical and economic changed is essentially positive
- The information revolution (technical, social and economic) is not only a new phase in human civilization but also an evolutionary step forward for life itself
Fordism and Post-fordism Fordism -Late 19th century to mid-20th century -Mass mechanized production -Standardized goods -Highly segmented process of production (assembly line)
Post-fordism -Economic restructuring in 1980s to increase flexibility -Just in time deliveries of special or small batch orders -Flattening of management hierarchy
Postmodernism
- a late 20th century stream of social philosophy that attempts to describe a condition or state of being, while radically undermining traditional notions of the constitution of truth and reality. (p. 16)- truth and reality is constructed through discourse- thus they are built upon shifting relationships and networks of power Instrumentalism(p36) A view in which:
-Technologies are neutral tools -Outcomes depend on how technologies are used
-We use technology to achieve more effectively ends that we deem worthwhile Substantivism(37-39)
-Technology embodies specific values & ways of being in the world
-individual devices may be neutral to their end usage, but technology in general encourages and enforces a particular way of being in the world (38) Social constructivism(39-43) Impact of technology determined by the social relations and local conditions that support the technology. Possibility of many different kinds of impacts depending on social interactions(supported by Castell)
Time space compression (61-62)
-new media make the passage of time and physical distance of space seem shorter.
Deterritorialization (62-64)
-the loss of territorial constraints on mass media, relates to the time space compression.
-generated and managed from places with less restrictions on time and space
Interactivity
All human communication involves interaction between people. It also refers to the capacity of digital communications media to enable a high degree of intervention and choice by users conversing the manner in which they receive information. (Barney, The Network Society, p.64)
Customization (67-68)
-the ability to make a highly personalized, individualized, mass media experience
-the ability to customize mass media experiences empowers the individuals
ie. facebook: boxes, apps, less info on friends...etc. myspace
Manuel Castells
Castells is a professor of urban geography at Berkley. He has written a number of books and articles about geography, the city, and the information society, including a three-volume analysis of contemporary capitalism, titled The Information Age
-As an historical trend, dominant functions and processes are increasingly organized around networks. Networks constitute the new social morphology of our societies, and the diffusion of networking logic substantially modifies the operation and outcomes in processes of production, experience, power and culture.
-the present economic and social situation is a new age, rather than a continuation of industrial capitalism
-Organization man is out. Flexible woman is in
-Productivity is derived from the application of knowledge
-Networking: capacity to assemble information and distribute it in a flexible, adaptable way aided by IT
-Highly skilled, mobile labour key resource for any company
-Ability to create new products & processes
-Culture of shared information
-Organizational learning
-Territorial concentrations of innovation and production – Silicon Valley
---Network Society----
-An informational economy
-Global economy
-Network enterprise
-Transformation of work: flexi-workers
-Social polarization/social exclusion
-Timeless time
-Space of flows
Michel Foucault
-Key figure in surveillance studies
-Knowledge & power always conjoined
-Never innocent knowledge; always an expression of power relationships
-“Discipline and Punishment: the Birth of the Prison (1979)
-Traces shift from punishment to discipline, from public executions (spectacle) to rehabilitation demanding need for information about crime, criminals & circumstances of crime = more need for records in & outside of prison & new forms of recording
Frank Webster Frank Webster argues that there has been 5 people who have attempted to justify the uses of the term Information society.
Technological
Economic
Occupational
Spatial
Cultural.
Webster felt that each of these were unsatisfactory, thus making today NOT an Infomation Society.
-'Information Revolution’: no more than an intensification of processes set in motion when Scientific Management became the watch word of corporate capitalism.
Technoculture
-information gathering, documentation, & surveillance = more administrative efficiency, control & maintenance of power
Taylorism & Scientific Mgm
-Application of engineering principles to the industrial system of production
-Time and motion studies to ensure efficiency
-Standardization
-Factory work to be planned, coordinated, & controlled under expert direction.
Expansion of info., info. networks, and data banks
Global work environments, flexible work arrangements, etc
High mass KNOWLEDGE creation
Network enterprise
- Communications backbone that connects an organizations every computer (and associated devices) at every location. “Network enterprise” gathers a number of related organization
The Network Enterprise is a virtual organization composed of many different types of businesses and networks of firms, supported by information technology, doing business with each other. Each segment of the enterprise may have an autonomous set of goals; the performance of the given enterprise will depend on how well it is connected, and how well the goals of the network components are consistent with the goals of the network enterprise itself
Example: Sheridan Slate Portal
Aspects of a network enterprise:
1) internal decentralized networking of large firms
2) multilocational, segmented production and distribution chains
3) network of small and medium sized firms linked to larger networks
4) sectoral-level strategic alliances and project-driven, ad hoc joint ventures between firms (business to business networking)
5) networks of synchronous interactivity between consumers/customers and vendors/firms (interactivity and customization)
Generic labour
Generic labor (including many workers in natural resource, manufacturing, and service industries, also minimum wage and sweatshop labor) is deskilled, interchangeable and disposable; for these people, the goal is simple survival so as not to be relegated to the class of switch-off irrelevant labor.Abilities acquired through production process and can be replaced by machines. Self programmable labour
- such as financial analysts, company officers, journalists – manages information;
- it is flexible and skilled
- Its interests coincide with the goals of the network.- knowledge and information expanded through lifelong learning
Restructuring of work and employment in new economy
Refer to Lecture Slide "Work and the New Economy"
Non-Standard Employment:
#1 Flexible Workers
- Part-time work
- Temporary Work
- 'Rented worker' - one of the fastest growing categories of employment in North America & Europe
#2 Self Employment
- Contracts, consulting, free lance work
- Professionals, small business owners, independent crafts people, trades people
- "Organization man is out. Flexible woman is in" - Contingent employment relationships
#3 Temporal & Spatial Dislocation
- Temporal dislocation = work not confined to 8 hour day, Monday - Friday work week
- More flex time geared to flow of demands
- Shift work
- Diversification of work time
- Spatial dislocation = home work, call centers, telecommuting
#4 End of Single Occupational Trajectory or Firm
- Decrease in long term job stability in a single firm for entire career
- Projection that in 40 year career, people will revamp skill sets 3 times and change jobs 11 times
- Portfolio workers - people who move from 1 task, contract or project to next, developing a network of portable skills, contacts, experiences
#5 Lifelong Learning
- Need for constant upgrading
- Maximize flexibility and mobility
- Ensure technological, skill and organizational compatibility with demands of new economy
- Self Programmable vs. generic labour
Benefits of Non-Standard Work
Drawbacks to Non-Standard Work
Increased work flexibility
Fewer non-wage benefits
Increased mobility, autonomy & work satisfaction
Job insecurity; hard work + loyalty = ?
Flexibility = condition of job security
Periodic under or unemployment
Facilitated increase of women into workplace
Increased competition rather than solidarity b/t workers; polarization of workforce
Social and Economic isolation for those working at home
Shifting of costs of technology, work facilities from firm to individual worker
What's Missing in the New Economy?
- Vertical Promotion
- Annual increases
- Long Term commitment
- Traditional Benefits Flexible production and management models in new economy
managementmodels:
- scientific management = direction by engineers, factory planning, time and motion study, standardization, intensive division of labour
Non-standard employment
(1) flexible workers
(2) self-employment
(3) temporal and spatial dislocation
(4) end of single occupational trajectory or firm
(5) lifelong learning
Drawbacks to non-standard work:
-Uncoupling of work from stable employment and steady income; fewer non-wage benefits
-hard work + loyalty != Job insecurity (idea imposed on the working class - Foucault)
-Periodic under or unemployment
-Increased competition rather than solidarity between workers; polarization of workforce
-Social and economic isolation for those working at home
-Shifting of costs of technology, work facilities from firm to individual worker
IT trends in Silicon Valley
-Territorial concentrations of innovation and production
- San Franciscan Bay area in US famous for innovations in software and internet
- historical influence on computer operating systems, software and user interfaces
-was the centre of the dot-com bubble, but remained successful after the crash
- notable companies include: Adobe, Apple, Cisco, eBay, Google, Intel, Facebook, Microsoft, Sony
Temporal and spatial dislocation of work
• Temporal dislocation = work not confined to 8 hour day, Monday – Friday work week
• More flex time geared to flow of demands
• Shift work
• Diversification of work time
• Spatial dislocation = home work, call centres, telecommuting
Portfolio workers An individual who looks for work instead of a job and uses his previous work or portfolio as a resume - People who move from one task, contract of project to next developing a network of portable skills, contacts, and experiences
Taylorism -Application of engineering principles to the industrial system of production -Time and motion studies to ensure efficiency -Standardization -Factory work to be planned, coordinated, & controlled under expert direction.
- prinicple and practices of scientific management
Sloanism
-Attempt to manage consumption through collection and processing of data on consumer behavior
-Personal data are used to sort populations into consuming types
-Sloanism marked the beginning of post-Fordist era, when marketing began to dominate the process of production.
-GM’s method of marketing became a worldwide model by which business could create and nourish demand. Sloanism continues to be essential to the workings of the late-capitalist economy.
-In the Post-Fordist era society is no longer structured in terms of classes that are determined with respect to labour and production. Now society is structure in terms of consumer classes, i.e now its not where you work but where you shop that determines your place within the social structure.
De-massification •Industrial economy = mass production, mass consumption economy •Traditional mass manufacturing factories put out identical objects by the millions •New economy=demassified production short runs; customized products
•Information & media services=segmented, individualized
Sources of surveillance data
Banks & data marketers collect data from transactions & web surfing
Retailers collect data on every transaction
Government agencies collect data from tax returns, property tax records & voting records
Employer r ecords including keylogging software for all computers connected to a company network (on/off site; wired/wireless)
University networks use keylogging software
Internet surfing records kept by your ISP
Public records
Public private video cameras
Bentham’s Panopticon
a prison design based on the theory of observing without being observed. In this case, the guards being the observers and the prisoners being the observed. - The general idea behind the design is that prisoners are distributed around a centrally located watch tower.
- Prisoners were able to view the tower and knew they were being watched (which theoretically should have induced behavioral changes) while the guards surveyed all of the prisoners easily from the tower.
- A secondary benefit for the prisoners was an opportunity to be in an isolated environment that provided time for contemplation of the behavior that brought them to prison.
-A benefit to the guards was the the prisoners couldn't see into the tower, so they never knew if they were being watched, but there was always the possibility
RFID
Automatic identification method, relying on storing and remotely retrieving data using devices called RFID (Radio-frequency identification) tags or transponders rs.
Purchaser may not be aware of RFID or able or able to remove it
Tag can be read at a distance without consent – beyond sightline of reader
Can be used almost anywhere as an identification system: passports, food, pets, clothing with simple info or complex instructions
Carnivore
-is a system implemented by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that is analogous to wiretapping, except in this case, e-mail and other communications are being tapped instead of telephone conversations. Carnivore is a customizable packet sniffer that can monitor all of a target user's Internet traffic. It is a form of policeware. Carnivore was implemented during the Clinton administration with the approval of the Attorney General. U.S. government officials have neither confirmed nor denied much about the physical or logical workings of Carnivore, but there are some facts that are generally agreed upon.
Trojan horse
- malware that performs malicious functions that allow unauthorized users to access the host computer
Drive by downloads
Drive-by downloading is a catch-all name for software downloaded on your computer without your knowledge or intervention.
Drive-by downloads sneak onto computers without the user’s knowledge or permission.
Some of the most common drive-by download carriers are songs from free music share sites, free screensavers, etc. Many of these install spyware that monitors your surfing habits, and then displays pop-ups that match your habits.
Example, if you invest a good chunk of your Internet time cruising sport sites, the spyware detects this, and it could then splash sporting apparel ads on your monitor.
Drive-by downloads can also attack your computer through e-mail spam
Online advocacy** (refer to slide: Online_Advocacy_Campaigns-1 : BY: Eric2) -Is the uses of the internet to organise and expanded advocacy campaigns
-Actions of advocating or supporting cause or proposals online.
-Examples: Hacktivists, Greenpeace
HERE(Rapidshare) OR HERE(Megauploads)
Shorter version 5 pgs ! HERE (megauploads)
Attributes of the network society
Characteristics:
- Presence of digital technologies forming basic infrastructure of social , political & economic practices
- Networks as basic form of human organization and relationship
Attribute #1
- Economic base of network society is informational
- Primacy of the generation & distribution of knowledge and information
- Emphasis on continuous technological innovation and flexibility as source of economic growth
Attribute #2
- The economy is organized globally
- Capital, commodities & information not contained within national boundaries
- Regions, cities, firms, individual workers are reconstituted as flexible, temporary networks of varying degrees of power
Attribute #3
- Time and space mediated by technology
- “Timeless time” and “space of flows”
Attribute #4
- Power and powerlessness are a function of access to networks and control over flows
- Networks acts as gatekeepers
- Some networks and nodes are more powerful than others
Attribute #5
- Tension between the abstract perception of being placeless and the concrete desire of people to be grounded in a particular place
- Disjuncture between globalizing technology and local identity
- In response, movements emerge to re-establish the local
Technological determinism
- Technology has the ability to drive human interaction and create social change-Focuses on impacts of ICTs on society.
Technological Determinism #1
- Belief that technologies have an overwhelming and inevitable power to drive human interaction and social change
- Focus on the the effects or impacts of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on users, organizations, society
- Science is driver of technological innovation resulting in improvements in society & progress
Technological Determinism #2
- Belief that ICTs bring transformative shifts in society
- Technology seen as independent causal factor
- Technological imperative combines with idea that people react to and accommodate technological change, but do not try to reverse or redirect it
Technological Determinism #3
- Ian Angell, New Barbarian Manifesto (2000)
- “A ‘brave new world is being forced upon unsuspecting societies by advances in information technology.”
- Technological advances happen automatically & have a life of their own
- There is a logic to technological advances which is outside our control
Social shaping perspective
- Technologies are continuously remade by what users do with them
- New media technologies both shape and are shaped by their social, economic and cultural contexts
- The shaping is “recombinant”= products of continuous hybridization of both existing technologies and innovations in interconnected technical and institutional frameworks
Web 1.0 and 2.0
Web 1.0 – is the old standard consisting of Static pages and plain html largely anything that isn’t web 2.0 personal home pages are one example of web 1.0. Controlled by people with authority. (Gov't Informational Website)
Web 2.0 – the new face of the World Wide Web focusing on communications, secure information sharing, collaboration. Some examples are face book, you tube , and wikipedia
Reading
Organizations
Owning/Selling
Brochure-ware
Portals
One-to-many
E-business
Central control
Writing
Communities
Sharing
Two-way communication
Social Networks
Many-to-many
Peer production
Reciprocal control
Richard Florida’s creative class
An emergent class in the work force consisting of knowledge workers, intellectuals, and various types of artists.
3 Media paradigms
Interpersonal Media: conversation, letter, telephone, email, IM one-to-one communication
Mass Media: theatre, oratory, books, radio, television, film one-to-many communication
New Media: discussion forums, blogs, YouTube, wikis, games many-to-many communication. New media are interactive, peered and networked
Toronto transit camp
An unconferences held in Toronto with the goals of understanding what is wrong with local transit and discussing ways to improve it
Open creative communities
Community: any group of individuals who interact and share some common
characteristics
Open: no artificial barriers to entry; membership comes from creative
citizenship, both professional and amateur
Creative: production of ideas and inventions that are personal, original and
meaningful
Engagement pyramid
Post-industrialism
a society in which an economic transition has occurred from a manufacturing based economy to a service based economy, a diffusion of national and global capital, and mass privatization.
Consists of
Post Industrial Society according to the text (87-88)
Information society
An information society is a society in which the creation, distribution, diffusion, use, integration and manipulation of information is a significant economic, political, and cultural activity. The knowledge economy is its economic counterpart whereby wealth is created through the economic exploitation of understanding.
According to Nick Dyer-Witherford, the doctrine surrounding the information society has 7 elemental beliefs:
- The world is in a state of fundamental transition/upheaval
- The crucial resource of the new society is knowledge/information
- The primary dynamic force in this revolution/society is technology development and diffusion
- The generation of wealth in the information economy has eclipsed that of the material/manufacturing economy
- Social transformation accompanying these technical and economic changed is essentially positive
- The information revolution (technical, social and economic) is not only a new phase in human civilization but also an evolutionary step forward for life itself
Fordism and Post-fordism
Fordism
-Late 19th century to mid-20th century
-Mass mechanized production
-Standardized goods
-Highly segmented process of production (assembly line)
Post-fordism
-Economic restructuring in 1980s to increase flexibility
-Just in time deliveries of special or small batch orders
-Flattening of management hierarchy
Postmodernism
- a late 20th century stream of social philosophy that attempts to describe a condition or state of being, while radically undermining traditional notions of the constitution of truth and reality. (p. 16)- truth and reality is constructed through discourse- thus they are built upon shifting relationships and networks of power
Instrumentalism (p36)
A view in which:
-Technologies are neutral tools
-Outcomes depend on how technologies are used
-We use technology to achieve more effectively ends that we deem worthwhile
Substantivism (37-39)
-Technology embodies specific values & ways of being in the world
-individual devices may be neutral to their end usage, but technology in general encourages and enforces a particular way of being in the world (38)
Social constructivism (39-43)
Impact of technology determined by the social relations and local conditions that support the technology. Possibility of many different kinds of impacts depending on social interactions(supported by Castell)
Time space compression (61-62)
-new media make the passage of time and physical distance of space seem shorter.
Deterritorialization (62-64)
-the loss of territorial constraints on mass media, relates to the time space compression.
-generated and managed from places with less restrictions on time and space
Interactivity
All human communication involves interaction between people. It also refers to the capacity of digital communications media to enable a high degree of intervention and choice by users conversing the manner in which they receive information. (Barney, The Network Society, p.64)
Customization (67-68)
-the ability to make a highly personalized, individualized, mass media experience
-the ability to customize mass media experiences empowers the individuals
ie. facebook: boxes, apps, less info on friends...etc. myspace
Manuel Castells
Castells is a professor of urban geography at Berkley. He has written a number of books and articles about geography, the city, and the information society, including a three-volume analysis of contemporary capitalism, titled The Information Age
-As an historical trend, dominant functions and processes are increasingly organized around networks. Networks constitute the new social morphology of our societies, and the diffusion of networking logic substantially modifies the operation and outcomes in processes of production, experience, power and culture.
-the present economic and social situation is a new age, rather than a continuation of industrial capitalism
-Organization man is out. Flexible woman is in
-Productivity is derived from the application of knowledge
-Networking: capacity to assemble information and distribute it in a flexible, adaptable way aided by IT
-Highly skilled, mobile labour key resource for any company
-Ability to create new products & processes
-Culture of shared information
-Organizational learning
-Territorial concentrations of innovation and production – Silicon Valley
---Network Society----
-An informational economy
-Global economy
-Network enterprise
-Transformation of work: flexi-workers
-Social polarization/social exclusion
-Timeless time
-Space of flows
Michel Foucault
-Key figure in surveillance studies
-Knowledge & power always conjoined
-Never innocent knowledge; always an expression of power relationships
-“Discipline and Punishment: the Birth of the Prison (1979)
-Traces shift from punishment to discipline, from public executions (spectacle) to rehabilitation demanding need for information about crime, criminals & circumstances of crime = more need for records in & outside of prison & new forms of recording
Frank Webster
Frank Webster argues that there has been 5 people who have attempted to justify the uses of the term Information society.
- Technological
- Economic
- Occupational
- Spatial
- Cultural.
Webster felt that each of these were unsatisfactory, thus making today NOT an Infomation Society.-'Information Revolution’: no more than an intensification of processes set in motion when Scientific Management became the watch word of corporate capitalism.
Technoculture
-information gathering, documentation, & surveillance = more administrative efficiency, control & maintenance of power
Taylorism & Scientific Mgm
-Application of engineering principles to the industrial system of production
-Time and motion studies to ensure efficiency
-Standardization
-Factory work to be planned, coordinated, & controlled under expert direction.
Saul Alinsky ( http://cct205-w09.wikispaces.com/Saul+Alinsky%27s+12+Rules+for+Radicals)
Saul Alinsky's 12 Rules of Radicals (used for community organizing):
Characteristics of new economy (refer to lecture slides: "
the ‘New Economy’ is centered on knowledge-intensive, R&D services that are needed to design, produce and market digital technologies
Robotics: Bring in new technology to elminate physical workers
Comparison of industrial and information society
*Taken from Industrial/Post-industrial slide in lec3*
Try to Add more please.
Network enterprise
- Communications backbone that connects an organizations every computer (and associated devices) at every location. “Network enterprise” gathers a number of related organization
The Network Enterprise is a virtual organization composed of many different types of businesses and networks of firms, supported by information technology, doing business with each other. Each segment of the enterprise may have an autonomous set of goals; the performance of the given enterprise will depend on how well it is connected, and how well the goals of the network components are consistent with the goals of the network enterprise itself
Example: Sheridan Slate Portal
Aspects of a network enterprise:
1) internal decentralized networking of large firms
2) multilocational, segmented production and distribution chains
3) network of small and medium sized firms linked to larger networks
4) sectoral-level strategic alliances and project-driven, ad hoc joint ventures between firms (business to business networking)
5) networks of synchronous interactivity between consumers/customers and vendors/firms (interactivity and customization)
Generic labour
Generic labor (including many workers in natural resource, manufacturing, and service industries, also minimum wage and sweatshop labor) is deskilled, interchangeable and disposable; for these people, the goal is simple survival so as not to be relegated to the class of switch-off irrelevant labor.Abilities acquired through production process and can be replaced by machines.
Self programmable labour
- such as financial analysts, company officers, journalists – manages information;
- it is flexible and skilled
- Its interests coincide with the goals of the network.- knowledge and information expanded through lifelong learning
Restructuring of work and employment in new economy
Refer to Lecture Slide "Work and the New Economy"
Non-Standard Employment:
#1 Flexible Workers
- Part-time work
- Temporary Work
- 'Rented worker' - one of the fastest growing categories of employment in North America & Europe
#2 Self Employment
- Contracts, consulting, free lance work
- Professionals, small business owners, independent crafts people, trades people
- "Organization man is out. Flexible woman is in"
- Contingent employment relationships
#3 Temporal & Spatial Dislocation
- Temporal dislocation = work not confined to 8 hour day, Monday - Friday work week
- More flex time geared to flow of demands
- Shift work
- Diversification of work time
- Spatial dislocation = home work, call centers, telecommuting
#4 End of Single Occupational Trajectory or Firm
- Decrease in long term job stability in a single firm for entire career
- Projection that in 40 year career, people will revamp skill sets 3 times and change jobs 11 times
- Portfolio workers - people who move from 1 task, contract or project to next, developing a network of portable skills, contacts, experiences
#5 Lifelong Learning
- Need for constant upgrading
- Maximize flexibility and mobility
- Ensure technological, skill and organizational compatibility with demands of new economy
- Self Programmable vs. generic labour
What's Missing in the New Economy?
- Vertical Promotion
- Annual increases
- Long Term commitment
- Traditional Benefits
Flexible production and management models in new economy
managementmodels:
- scientific management = direction by engineers, factory planning, time and motion study, standardization, intensive division of labour
Non-standard employment
(1) flexible workers
(2) self-employment
(3) temporal and spatial dislocation
(4) end of single occupational trajectory or firm
(5) lifelong learning
Drawbacks to non-standard work:
-Uncoupling of work from stable employment and steady income; fewer non-wage benefits
-hard work + loyalty != Job insecurity (idea imposed on the working class - Foucault)
-Periodic under or unemployment
-Increased competition rather than solidarity between workers; polarization of workforce
-Social and economic isolation for those working at home
-Shifting of costs of technology, work facilities from firm to individual worker
IT trends in Silicon Valley
-Territorial concentrations of innovation and production
- San Franciscan Bay area in US famous for innovations in software and internet
- historical influence on computer operating systems, software and user interfaces
-was the centre of the dot-com bubble, but remained successful after the crash
- notable companies include: Adobe, Apple, Cisco, eBay, Google, Intel, Facebook, Microsoft, Sony
Temporal and spatial dislocation of work
• Temporal dislocation = work not confined to 8 hour day, Monday – Friday work week
• More flex time geared to flow of demands
• Shift work
• Diversification of work time
• Spatial dislocation = home work, call centres, telecommuting
Portfolio workers
An individual who looks for work instead of a job and uses his previous work or portfolio as a resume
- People who move from one task, contract of project to next developing a network of portable skills, contacts, and experiences
Taylorism
-Application of engineering principles to the industrial system of production
-Time and motion studies to ensure efficiency
-Standardization
-Factory work to be planned, coordinated, & controlled under expert direction.
- prinicple and practices of scientific management
Sloanism
-Attempt to manage consumption through collection and processing of data on consumer behavior
-Personal data are used to sort populations into consuming types
-Sloanism marked the beginning of post-Fordist era, when marketing began to dominate the process of production.
-GM’s method of marketing became a worldwide model by which business could create and nourish demand. Sloanism continues to be essential to the workings of the late-capitalist economy.
-In the Post-Fordist era society is no longer structured in terms of classes that are determined with respect to labour and production. Now society is structure in terms of consumer classes, i.e now its not where you work but where you shop that determines your place within the social structure.
De-massification
•Industrial economy = mass production, mass consumption economy
•Traditional mass manufacturing factories put out identical objects by the millions
•New economy=demassified production short runs; customized products
•Information & media services=segmented, individualized
Sources of surveillance data
Banks & data marketers collect data from transactions & web surfing
Retailers collect data on every transaction
Government agencies collect data from tax returns, property tax records & voting records
Employer r ecords including keylogging software for all computers connected to a company network (on/off site; wired/wireless)
University networks use keylogging software
Internet surfing records kept by your ISP
Public records
Public private video cameras
Bentham’s Panopticon
a prison design based on the theory of observing without being observed. In this case, the guards being the observers and the prisoners being the observed.
- The general idea behind the design is that prisoners are distributed around a centrally located watch tower.
- Prisoners were able to view the tower and knew they were being watched (which theoretically should have induced behavioral changes) while the guards surveyed all of the prisoners easily from the tower.
- A secondary benefit for the prisoners was an opportunity to be in an isolated environment that provided time for contemplation of the behavior that brought them to prison.
-A benefit to the guards was the the prisoners couldn't see into the tower, so they never knew if they were being watched, but there was always the possibility
RFID
Automatic identification method, relying on storing and remotely retrieving data using devices called RFID (Radio-frequency identification) tags or transponders rs.
Purchaser may not be aware of RFID or able or able to remove it
Tag can be read at a distance without consent – beyond sightline of reader
Can be used almost anywhere as an identification system: passports, food, pets, clothing with simple info or complex instructions
Carnivore
-is a system implemented by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that is analogous to wiretapping, except in this case, e-mail and other communications are being tapped instead of telephone conversations. Carnivore is a customizable packet sniffer that can monitor all of a target user's Internet traffic. It is a form of policeware. Carnivore was implemented during the Clinton administration with the approval of the Attorney General. U.S. government officials have neither confirmed nor denied much about the physical or logical workings of Carnivore, but there are some facts that are generally agreed upon.
Trojan horse
- malware that performs malicious functions that allow unauthorized users to access the host computer
Drive by downloads
Drive-by downloading is a catch-all name for software downloaded on your computer without your knowledge or intervention.
Drive-by downloads sneak onto computers without the user’s knowledge or permission.
Some of the most common drive-by download carriers are songs from free music share sites, free screensavers, etc. Many of these install spyware that monitors your surfing habits, and then displays pop-ups that match your habits.
Example, if you invest a good chunk of your Internet time cruising sport sites, the spyware detects this, and it could then splash sporting apparel ads on your monitor.
Drive-by downloads can also attack your computer through e-mail spam
Online advocacy** (refer to slide: Online_Advocacy_Campaigns-1 : BY: Eric2)
-Is the uses of the internet to organise and expanded advocacy campaigns
-Actions of advocating or supporting cause or proposals online.
-Examples: Hacktivists, Greenpeace